Thursday, January 17, 2008

Sexual Hysteria Over Huckabee

My readers know that even though I'm a conservative Christian, I'm no Huckabee huckster. Even so, I found this charge at TPM Election Central utterly (udderly?) ridiculous:

Huck, in elaborating on his views that the Constitution should be subjected to Biblical standards, had just wrapped up a discussion of the fact that marriage has meant "a man and a woman in a relationship for life." With this context firmly established, this exchange followed:

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

That's pretty clear cut. Changing the definition of marriage so it can mean "two men" or "two women" is equivalent to changing it to mean "a man and an animal." No ambiguity here whatsoever.

Based on this, TPM trumpets that Huckabee "directly equated homosexuality with bestiality."

You would think that the writer, Greg Sargent, has never heard of the concept of "slippery slope."

Huckabee's statement is one oft used by marriage defenders, who worry that once you allow two men or two women to marry, it won't be long until one man and two women or one man and one boy start pushing the courts for the same coverage. Given American courts' propensity to write new liberal law, the argument can easily go to bestiality without too extreme a rhetorical leap.

Well, in fact Sargent has heard of the "slippery slope," since he ends the post with:

Separately, it's worth pointing out that Huck's quote above doesn't even use the tried-and-true "slippery slope" argument to couch his view that homosexuality is akin to bestiality. It's a direct equivalence.

Must every candidate statement be footnoted and parenthesis-ized to present all relevant background? That seems too tall a test by a factor of a bunch of numbers. besides, Sargent analysis is utterly oblique. Here's Huck again:

I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again.

Note the logical progression, coincidentally exactly as I laid it out above (other than the polygamist gets three women instead of two), and I wasn't cross-checking. As if that did not define a slippery slope well enough, Huck added that the law would "open the door to change [the definition] again." That is what we mean when we say slippery slope.

You open the door, and there before you is a slippery slope.

Sargent is showing the common anti-Born Again prejudice in his extreme and inflammatory interpretation of Huckabee's position. So here's a slippery slope argument for him: If we allow you to open your door to redefining marriage, the next move will be to accept the Left's opening the door to banning un-multicultural thought and speech.

"Thank you for the "Voice of the Victims films. The students really liked them, and it means so much to them to hear real stories and not watch a cheesy drama like so many other videos."
— High school teacher.